Freakonomics Meets Poker, Dead/Not-Dead Cats... and We Turn 100

One of those tidbits that didn't quite make its way into the largest poker-news outlets was a press release from economist Steven D. Levitt, author of the best-selling book Freakonomics. If you haven't read the book, you've likely at least heard the title. As the overview of the book describes, Freakonomics is a series of incentive-based examinations of sociological behaviors that offer an explanation for the otherwise unexplainable. Here's just a sample of the questions the book attempts to answer: "Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime?"

Weird stuff, but like poker, it touched a chord in the collective conscience, and sold lots and lots of copies.

So it's perhaps no surprise that Levitt has now turned his attention to poker; it's an attention-grabbing field if nothing else. In a post made to the Freakonomics blog last week, Levitt is looking for "serious poker players" to volunteer for an experiment he is running in Las Vegas between July 21 and 27. These volunteers get to "make a little money," get a signed copy of the original Freakonomics book, and get to read about themselves in the sequel. (Image source: www.freakonomics.com)

Okay, I'm going to be in Vegas starting the 25th, but I'm not volunteering, although if you wish to, just follow the link above. Here's why I'll sit this one out.

I like the idea that the type of socioeconomic analysis Levitt proposes is somehow applicable to a "serious" game of poker. But beyond the beginning or intermediate level, I don't believe it. Levitt's planned anaylsis of poker has about the same chance of capturing the heart of poker's soul as a poker bot does of becoming a dominant player at the Big Game at the Bellagio... for much the same reasons. Matter of fact, if Levitt were to uncover poker's version of physics' GUI [Grand Unified Theory], then I'd sure they'd save him a seat.

What I find oddest, though, is that Levitt's call for volunteers blithely ignores the fact that the controls he would institute will skew the results he's likely to get. He's going to pay his volunteers a nominal fee? Okay, that's a skew, an artificial factor. They're playing for what, play chips or real money? That's another skew --- he's got no way in advance of guaranteeing that whatever the prize of his controlled poker play happens to be, it would be of equal value to all the participants, and thus affect how seriously they play. They're playing for additional non-monetary considerations, to receive a signed book and be mentioned in another? Okay, we now have skew numbers three and four.

It doesn't add up. I threw in the physics reference because this is one of those Schrödinger's Cat tales, a quantum indeterminancy: measuring and quantifying poker play in this manner will itself change the way the game is being played. We won't even talk about Caro's Law of Loose Wiring, though it also applies here.

It is the observer's paradox. Sometimes the best things in life --- and in poker --- just can't be observed. But best of luck to Levitt, regardless.

And, yes, this is my 100th post to this poker blog. Of which something slightly less than 100 had to do with poker.